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“Right here.”
“He’s… no, wait, he just got off the line.”
There was a click, then Kerry Smith said, “Dino?”
“One and the same.”
“How are you?”
“A little hungover,” Dino admitted. “We closed Elaine’s last night, for the last time.”
“You know, I never made it there,” Kerry replied.
“Too late now,” Dino said. “You know who else was there?”
“Who?”
“Your former assistant director, Ms. Bach.”
“You saw her? Did you call it in?”
“No, she saw me. There was a message from her on my answering machine when I got in. You want to hear it?”
“Yes, please.”
Dino held the phone next to the machine and pressed the button. When she had finished talking he put the phone back to his ear. “Could you hear that?”
“Yes, and I recorded it, so I don’t have to send two agents over there to rip out your phone and take the tape.”
“That’s kind of you, Kerry. What now?”
“I’ll alert the New York field office, and they’ll take it from there.”
“You want me to put out an APB with my department? Your guys don’t know anything about finding a fugitive in New York.”
“I don’t accept that contention, but I accept your offer of an APB. What do you think your chances are of finding her?”
“About the same as yours,” Dino said. “Zip, pretty much. She’s a smart girl, you should forgive the expression, and if you haven’t run her down so far, you’re not likely to get her now. There are eight million stories in the city, and hers is only one of them.”
“You’re probably right,” Kerry said, “but I’ll deny I ever said that. There’s more bad news on that front: Shelley had substantial inheritances from her grandfather and her mother, and she moved her capital out of the country, through a series of offshore banks. She worked on capital-tracing cases earlier in her career, so she knows how to do that.”
“So she’s well financed?”
“Extremely.”
“I could never get her to talk much about her background,” Dino said. “What do you know about her?”
“Born in Philadelphia, where her grandfather owned a large department store. Her father died in a riding accident when she was seven, fell off a horse and broke his neck. She and her mother moved in with the grandparents, and she had a happy life. College at Mount Holyoke and Harvard Law School, where she edited the Law Review. Joined a New York firm after school, lasted a couple of years. Hated it. Joined the Bureau for excitement, I guess, and she did well.”
“Suppose she shows up. What do you want me to do?”
“Are you nuts? Arrest her!”
“I’d feel bad about that,” Dino said. “We got close when I was in D.C.”
“Yeah, well, she and I were close for a couple of years, too, but I wouldn’t hesitate to clap irons on her.”
“Yes, you would,” Dino said.
